


An Expert Cut Of Cloth

by culturevulture73, jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Don't ask us, Friends to Lovers, Hormones running wild, Light Angst, M/M, Scents & Smells, Slash, Where did that yellow jacket come from?, borrowing clothing, skysolo, we don't know either, where did Luke get that black shirt?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 21:44:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6924577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/culturevulture73/pseuds/culturevulture73, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Nothing to worry 'bout, kid; you just sling on your good shirt and smile.”<br/>Or:  exactly where did Luke get the outfit he wore to the medal ceremony?</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Expert Cut Of Cloth

 

 

Who knew that once he'd washed the garbage out of his hair, the kid would look like _that_?

 

Well, okay, _yes_ , Han had known, objectively, but Luke sitting there in Han's cabin in nothing but underwear – very _brief_ underwear – m ore than drove home the point.

 

With an effort, Han dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. There was a celebration ceremony in the works for them, medals to be awarded and all that “good for morale” crap, which Han supposed he really couldn't blame them for because it was pretty much a miracle that they were all still breathing. But Luke had looked a bit spooked after the announcement, so Han pulled him aside.

 

“Nothing to worry 'bout, kid; you just sling on your good shirt and smile.”

 

“That's just it, Han – this _is_ my good shirt. In fact, it's my _only_ shirt, now,” Luke said.

 

And it was then that Han remembered exactly how they'd left Tatooine. Luke probably didn't have a stitch more than the flightsuit he'd been given and what he was currently standing up in.

 

Han did a quick mental review of some of the Falcon's long-unseen inventory and then punched Luke lightly on the arm. “I think I can fix that. C'mon.”

 

Which was how he'd come to be rooting through one of the side-lockers in his cabin and trying – and failing – not to notice the tanned, toned body that'd been hiding under Luke's baggy clothing.

 

“I might have something, we’re not that much different in size – yeah, here we go,” he said, pulling out an older pair of boots. “These were always a little tight – extra pair of socks and they'll do you. You'll have t’polish ‘em, though.”

 

“I can do that. But you're taller than I am.” Luke was perched on the edge of Han's bunk, watching the excavation with bright, intent eyes.

 

“So you roll some edges. Ain't like I'm Chewie's height, y'know. 'N I'm heavier now, but I used to – ”

 

“You're not.”

 

“Not what?”

 

“Heavy.”

 

Han paused and took a mental breath, because the kid could not possibly mean that the way it sounded. He looked over his shoulder and met the wide, seemingly guileless crystal-blue regard.

 

Luke shrugged lightly, but he didn't drop his gaze. “Well, you're not.”

 

Han absolutely, positively did not feel the back of his neck getting warm. “Ye-ah, okay,” he muttered, and turned back to the locker before he did something he'd regret. “Anyway, I used to be about as thin as you. If my old stuff ain't here, it's in a box in the aft hold.” He started tossing clothes toward the bunk and Luke caught them and laid them out. He paused at the leather jacket though, and Han turned in time to catch him lifting the garment toward his face and inhaling.

 

“Nothing like the smell of good leather,” Han said, trying to ignore the sudden hot tingle in his gut.

 

“What kind is it?” Luke asked, taking another sniff.

 

Han really wished he'd stop that. “Corellian nerf hide. And if I put that on you, the Princess will kill me.”

 

“Why would she – what's this?” Luke brushed his fingers over the long, irregular black splotch on the right sleeve.

 

“Blaster scorch – got kinda close.” And wasn't _that_ the understatement of the standard annum? Han sat back on his heels. “Gotta tailor on H'Konh that I use sometimes, out in the planet's Western Reaches. I'll have him fix it next time I'm out that way.”

 

Luke was still back on the first bit. “You were _that_ close?”

 

Han shrugged. “Been closer. Hell, _you_ were closer, there on the Death Star.”

 

Luke stared at him another moment, before he blinked and his gaze slid away, off to the side. “You know, it didn't seem like that,” he said softly, “not until Ben – ” He squeezed his eyes shut.

 

It was like some kind of magnetic attraction. Han found himself rising to his feet and sitting down on the bunk, the pile of old clothes the only thing between himself and Luke. “I'm sorry, kid,” he said, feeling awkward as all hell. “'S always bad to lose a friend.”

 

The sound Luke made might have been a laugh in some other lifetime. “I didn't even know him that well. But he ...” Luke swallowed. “I never knew my parents, my aunt and uncle raised me and the Imperials murdered them just before I met you. Ben was the only other person I've ever met who knew my father.”

 

Han grimaced. Yet one more orphan, courtesy of the frikkin' Empire. Hells, this one and the princess too – her whole world blown to oblivion, planet and all, but at least she'd made the choice to get involved. It looked like Luke had just been tossed in head-first.

 

This called for serious measures.

 

“Tell you what.” Han raised a hand and laid it on Luke's shoulder, and squeezed. “Let's see what here,” he nodded at the pile of fabric between them, “fits you. Then we'll dig out some of the captain's fine stash of alcohol and you 'n me'll give your people a proper send-off.”

 

Luke breathed deep. Then his shoulders flexed – and there was more muscle on him than Han'd thought – and he straightened up and looked at Han squarely. “I like that plan.”

 

Luke had guts, no question about that. And Han was not going to think about how fast that'd probably get the kid killed, and possibly Han along with him. Not right now.

 

Han gave the warm shoulder a little shake and then quickly ruffled the sandy-blond hair, too, because he just couldn't help himself. “All right. Pants first,” he said, hoping to all hells the first pair or two would be a reasonable fit because he wasn't entirely sure how many times he could watch Luke undress right in front of him.

 

His luck held – the second pair was okay. “Put a belt on those and turn 'em up at the bottom, they'll be good,” Han said, eyeing him. And if he was staring a little more than necessary, under the guise of critical analysis, who was gonna know?

 

“You weren't kidding about the being skinnier thing, were you?” Luke said.

 

“Nope. Think I was well into my twenties before I 'grew into my feet,' as the Wookies put it.”

 

Luke's smile flashed out at that, like sunlight into a dark room. It faded again as he shifted, then sniffed, a little shiver running over his skin. “How about a shirt?”

 

Shirt. Right. Han dug into the remaining fabric next to him on the bunk and came up with a brown one and a black one. He handed Luke the brown one and watched as his friend shrugged into it, muscle flexing across the lean chest – “Ah, no, you're swimming in that. Try the black one.”

 

Luke took a deep breath, before he moved to take off the shirt. As he did, a hint of other kinds of movement caught Han's eye, a shift in the soft confines of the soon-to-be-borrowed pants. Something was getting Luke going.

 

A smile pulled at one corner of Han's mouth because gods, didn't he just remember that? Being Luke's age and randy all the damn time? When everything from a shapely human form of either sex to a stray erotic thought – hells, a stray breeze, sometimes – had been enough to get him revved.

 

He traded Luke the black shirt for the brown one and watched again as Luke put it on, knowing right away that this one would be workable. Luke settled his shoulders and turned his head to one side, and sniffed. Then stopped, and took a deeper breath.

 

Han refused to be embarrassed. “Yeah, it'll probably need a cleaning, gods know how long it's been in there with everything else.”

 

“It's fine, no problem.” Luke sounded distracted, and sniffed again, and Han noticed more movement in the loose trousers. And that's when it hit him: Luke was reacting to the _smell_.

 

Sweet gods below, really?

 

Luke swallowed, and was that a hint of color flushing over his cheekbones? Han swallowed too and covered it with a crooked smile because he'd be cool and casual about this even if he sprained something in the process, godsdammit. “Nothing to worry about, kid; I remember what that's like. Your hormones are running in hyperdrive – I know it ain't me.”

 

Yeah, that was color, all right, but Luke took a breath and looked Han dead in the eyes. “What if it is?”

 

Han stared, stunned. Had Luke really just said –?

 

Luke stared back, his eyes full of that crazy, amazing courage of his. “The shirt is perfect just like it is, Han,” he said, and his voice was low and not entirely steady. “It smells like you.”

 

And that – was simply more than Han could take.

 

He rose to his feet, gaze still locked with Luke's. He didn't let himself think anymore; he just slid one hand into tangled blond hair and leaned in, and kissed him.

 

Something in the back of Han's mind still expected resistance, but there was none. Luke's mouth opened instead and he pressed closer; inexperienced, maybe, but not shy. The taste of him dropped straight down to Han's groin.

 

The thought flickered through his head: _this kid and his crazy princess are going to get me killed. Or worse._

 

Han shoved that off into a dark, far-off corner and ignored it even as he felt Luke's hands tugging his own shirt free and slipping beneath to find his skin; as he shifted his weight and took the two of them down in a tangle on his bunk, and kept on kissing Luke.

 

*

 

Han Solo has been there from the beginning, and he knows Luke Skywalker very well. From that first rushed escape off Tatooine to this madcap celebration in the massive green leafy-ness of Endor's moon, Han knows so many things about Luke.

 

But in between the beginning and now, there are things that Han doesn't know, things he doesn't find out until much, much later. He knows that Luke keeps the black shirt and the pants that Han's given him. He knows that Luke gets his own boots which fit properly.

 

But he doesn't realize that they are _the same clothes_ which Luke wears at every occasion from Yavin to Hoth. He doesn't know how Luke revels in the smell of Han's body which lingers in the shirt's black folds, until Luke finally has to give up and clean it.

 

He doesn't know that Luke sleeps in that shirt after Bespin: a talisman against his nightmares and an unspoken charm for the return of the bitterly missed man trapped in a nightmare of his own.

 

Han finds out none of this until after the battle of Endor.

 

The fires of celebration are finally beginning to die down. Han is comfortably full of food and alcohol and near exhaustion and the complete and utter relief of having all the people he loves close around him, mostly unharmed. A precious moment of breathing space in the insanity that's become his life.

 

The life that the man at his side gave back to him.

 

Han takes a long, leisurely look at the slender, wiry figure sitting next to him. What Luke is wearing these days is a big change from before Han had gotten dropped into deep freeze. Now he's a symphony all in close-fit textures of black. And it suits him, somehow. “Nice clothes, kid.”

 

Luke smiles at him, warm as the fire at their feet, and leans into Han as if to share a secret. “They're good, aren't they? I had them made by a tailor on H’Konh. The man I love very, very much recommended him to me … ”

 

*

*

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jessebee for the outstanding beta and suggestions, as always, you rock! Thanks Holly C for the beta.
> 
> ETA: 5.25.16  
> jessebee here. There's a funny little story around this little story. For those who've realized that this seems almost (but not quite) the same as it was when it was originally posted: you are correct :-)
> 
> My dear friend culturevulture73 responded to my pitiful cry for help one day, when a larger fic I was wrestling with refused to cooperate and I wanted something to take my mind off it, something lighter, and she said “I gotta exchange thing I'm in and I got these ideas – you wanna help?” And I did, and this couture tale is the result. But it turned out that an exchange fic having two authors wasn't quite cricket, we were told. Hence, two version of the same shirt. We've just exchanged the later version for the original.
> 
> But … nowhere is answered the question about that yellow jacket.
> 
> Thanks again, CV, for everything – it's been loads of fun :-D


End file.
